1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power supplies for electronics and computers.
2. Description of the Background Art
Supplying power with back-up or redundancy to computer systems or servers is desirable or required in certain applications. One conventional solution requires a power supply to be inside of the computer system chassis. If redundancy is desired, then the computer system must either have two power supplies or have a more expensive custom design. Two AC power feeds (one for each power supply) is typically used in providing the redundancy. In addition, these solutions take up valuable system volume in a high-density computer system. Furthermore, the smaller power supplies used are typically plagued by greater inefficiencies, which add up in terms of additional cooling requirements.
Another conventional solution is to use a Telco-style centralized infrastructure for power conversion and distribution. Typically, external AC feeds from multiple sources are routed to a centralized system for power conversion to the appropriate DC power level(s). The converted power is then used to supply power and also to charge a set of batteries for back-up purposes. This type of implementation may work well for a large-scale deployment of servers, such as at a Telco Central Office. However, it does not scale well for smaller deployments, such as compute clusters consisting of one or a few racks of high density computing. Disadvantages of the Telco-style solution include that deployment and maintenance costs are generally high and that common lower cost components are typically not utilized.
The above-described problems and disadvantages may be overcome by utilizing embodiments of the present invention.